ALBUM REVIEW: Charlie Parr – Little Sun

Smithsonian Folkways

Released: 22.03.24

Twenty-some years and almost as many albums into what he’d probably baulk at calling a ‘career’, Charlie Parr is a quiet institution, a self-effacing bedrock of the US roots music community. He’s worked with Jack Rose, with fellow Duluth dwellers Low, with Black Twig Pickers, and on this fine new album, the magnificent Marisa Anderson.

Recorded with a band and with overdubs – both new territory for Parr – Little Sun at times has a bar-room feel, like a Basement Tapes vibe, and Boombox Dancing is a proper shitkicker (and is about the joy of dancing, appropriately enough). But there’s room for aching and yearning (on Pale Fire and Stray) and a bluesy chug on Sloth. Perhaps not his best but still pretty, pretty good.